Featured Research

from universities, journals, and other organizations

Earlier butterfly emergence linked to climate change

Date:

March 19, 2010

Source:

University of Melbourne

Summary:

Butterflies are emerging in spring over 10 days earlier than they did 65 years ago, a shift that has been linked to regional human-induced climate change in an Australian-led study. The work reveals a causal link between increasing greenhouse gases, regional warming and the change in timing of a natural event.

Share This

Butterflies are emerging in spring over 10 days earlier than they did 65 years ago, a shift that has been linked to regional human-induced climate change in a University of Melbourne- led study. The work reveals, for the first time, a causal link between increasing greenhouse gases, regional warming and the change in timing of a natural event.

Related Articles

The study found that over a 65 year period, the mean emergence date for adults of the Common Brown butterfly (Heteronympha merope) has shifted 1.6 days earlier per decade in Melbourne, Australia. The findings are unique because the early emergence is causally linked with a simultaneous increase in air temperatures around Melbourne of approximately 0.14°C per decade, and this warming is shown to be human-induced (anthropogenic).

Lead author of the study Dr Michael Kearney from the Department of Zoology, University of Melbourne says the findings could help our ability to forecast future impacts of climate change on biodiversity.

"Shifts in these seasonal life cycle events represent a challenge to species, altering the food and competition present at the time of hatching. Studies such as ours will allow better forecasting of these shifts and help us understand more about their consequences," says Dr Kearney.

The butterfly emergence work was conducted by Dr Kearney and PhD student Natalie Briscoe. Professor David Karoly from the School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne contributed the climate modeling work. Co-authors include Dr Warren Porter (University of Wisconsin) and Drs Melanie Norgate and Paul Sunnucks from Monash University. The study was funded by an Australian Research Council grant to Monash, Melbourne and Wisconsin Universities.

The study will be published in Biology Letters, a journal of the Royal Society.

The team raised caterpillars of the Common Brown Butterfly in the laboratory to measure the physiological impact of temperature on its rate of development. They used this information to model the effect of observed historical climate trends in Melbourne on the speed of the butterfly's development. They combined this with global climate model outputs for the Melbourne area over the same period to examine whether natural climate variability or human influence on climate was more likely to have caused the air temperature change seen in Melbourne.

"Scientists have previously observed that biological events are happening progressively earlier in spring over the past few decades. This new work has tied the earlier emergence of butterflies directly to a regional temperature increase, and has tied the temperature increase very strongly to increases in greenhouse gas concentrations caused by humans," says Professor Karoly.

More From ScienceDaily

More Earth & Climate News

Featured Research

Mar. 3, 2015 — Attendance at schools exposed to high levels of traffic-related air pollution is linked to slower cognitive development among 7- to 10-year-old children in Barcelona, according to a new ... full story

Mar. 3, 2015 — While studying a ground-nesting bird population near El Reno, Okla., a research team found that stress during a severe weather outbreak of May 31, 2013, had manifested itself into malformations in ... full story

Mar. 3, 2015 — Researchers studied quartz from the San Andreas Fault at the microscopic scale, the scale at which earthquake-triggering stresses originate. The results could one day lead to a better understanding ... full story

Mar. 3, 2015 — The 3-D printing scene, a growing favorite of do-it-yourselfers, has spread to the study of plasma physics. With a series of experiments, researchers have found that 3-D printers can be an important ... full story

Mar. 3, 2015 — Researchers have developed a new way of rapidly screening yeasts that could help produce more sustainable biofuels. The new technique could also be a boon in the search for new ways of deriving ... full story

Mar. 3, 2015 — For almost a century, scientists have been puzzled by a process that is crucial to much of the life in Earth's oceans: Why does calcium carbonate, the tough material of seashells and corals, ... full story

Mar. 3, 2015 — Major cities in the UK are falling behind their international counterparts in terms of their use of smart technologies, according to a new study. The research has found that smart cities in the UK, ... full story

Mar. 3, 2015 — To simulate chimp behavior, scientists created a computer model based on equations normally used to describe the movement of atoms and molecules in a confined space. An interdisciplinary research ... full story

Mar. 3, 2015 — Rather than just waiting patiently for any pollinator that comes their way to start the next generation of seeds, some plants appear to recognize the best suitors and 'turn on' to increase the chance ... full story

Featured Videos

Looted and Leaking, South Sudan's Oil Wells Pose Health Risk

AFP (Mar. 3, 2015) — Thick black puddles and a looted, leaking ruin are all that remain of the Thar Jath oil treatment facility, once a crucial part of South Sudan&apos;s mainstay industry. Duration: 01:13
Video provided by AFP

Related Stories

Aug. 18, 2014 — Members of the brown argus butterfly species that moved north in response to recent climate change have evolved a narrower diet dependent on wild Geranium plants, researchers report. However, ... full story

Nov. 21, 2013 — The flight season timing of a wide variety of butterflies is responsive to temperature and could be altered by climate change, according to a new study that leverages more than a century's worth ... full story

Aug. 19, 2013 — Butterflies collected as long ago as 1876 – the year Alexander Graham Bell made the world's first telephone call – are shedding new light on the earlier arrival of spring each year. ... full story

June 1, 2012 — A recent study of the impact of climate change on butterflies suggests that some species might adapt much better than others, with implications for the pollination and herbivory associated with these ... full story

Mar. 15, 2012 — By using decades of vineyard records, scientists have for the first time been able to attribute early ripening of wine grapes to climate warming and declines in soil water ... full story

ScienceDaily features breaking news and videos about the latest discoveries in health, technology, the environment, and more -- from major news services and leading universities, scientific journals, and research organizations.